Holy Water
by Elagabalus
Summary: (One-Shot) Guilt is a web that entangles and suffocates if left alone. Rain may wash your hands clean, but the tint of sin will linger.


**A/N:** When you read this, try to keep in mind the whole issue of Harry's mind being susceptible to Voldemort (the Arthur Weasley incident, the incident in the Ministry where Voldie tried to trick Dumbledore, ect.). Just a reminder. A person I showed it to got confused, so I didn't want that to happen to anyone else.

**Holy Water**

By King

"Clericus et miles; pergant ad cetera viles  
Nam locus hic primus; decet illos vilis et imus."

Inscription on a font preserved in the museum of Angers.

* * *

The rhythmic pounding of rain against the pepper-gray road of the dim little section of England called Privet Drive was merciless to both man and beast in its toil against anything to cross its path. However, despite this relentless foe a single figure could be seen trudging his way through the murkiness searching desperately, frantically for some objective infinitely important. This either extremely foolish or extremely devout man's voice vainly tried to fight against the terrible rain and yet it simply threw the words back, taunting in triumph over this creature stupid enough to risk Mother Nature's wrath. But even she has compassion for the wretched, and withdrawing her relentless torrent to gentle drizzle, Remus Lupin's shouts were finally heard through the darkness. 

"Harry! Harry! Harry!"

Cool wisps of fog formed before his mouth as his boots splashed heedlessly into puddles and freezing droplets dripped into the depths of his soul as his fear grew stronger by the second. His pace quickening as a ramshackle playground came into watery view, Remus struggled to keep from a panic that threatened to overcome all of his senses. _Creeeaaak. Creeeaaak. Creeeaaak._ Corroded, rusty chains and hinges complained wearily through the mists and rainfalls; He immediately shuddered to a trembling, fearfully hopeful stop. There! A disturbingly emaciated figure, apathetic droplets falling against the thin and milky-blue skin, and a bare neck seeming to barely hold up a head with a mass of sopping, black-velvet hair; all of it floating slowly and rigidly on that old, tired swingset. He was like some tortured apparition unable to decide whether it was really worth moving on, whether it was really necessary to find peace.

Squelching unsteadily through the mud, Remus finally managed to croak out, "Harry?"

Skreeek. The steady swinging stopped, but Harry did not look up. Moving forward until he came an arm's breadth from the boy, Remus could still feel the erratic pulsing of his heart even though he had finally, finally found him. And still, Harry did not look up.

"…Sirius once told me you loved the rain best. Is it the same reason as mine?" Harry's pale whisper seemed to the older man like a peal of incorrigible oblivion.

Remus couldn't help but shudder as he fought in vain to keep a steady voice. "What reason, Harry?"

Lifting his head like an unbearable burden, a flimsy, sad smile snaked across his face like some jagged wound. Barely audible, even through the ever-weakening rainfall, Harry's answer hit him with thunder, with shards of some broken and forgotten dream.

"No one can tell if you cry in the rain."

A few hours earlier…

The Burrow had never been the type of house to take kindly to misery or gloom, no matter what the circumstances of its many residents. Through any and every disaster, it always seemed like no time before an infecting mood of cheeriness overwhelmed all of Weasleys and any guests fortunate enough to visit the dilapidated and rambunctious halls. And it certainly helped when there was a Mrs. Weasley there to stuff you silly with her deliciously over-sized meals. These days a shortage of food became a constant worry of the buxom housewife because of their two summer lodgers, Harry Potter and Hermione Granger.

On this particular day, Mrs. Weasley was working herself into a royal tizzy in her efforts to create the perfect celebration dinner in honor of three new Apparation licenses entering the house. Utensils were flying and random bits of food were flung against anything still enough to allow it. The poor teapot had long-before hidden itself in terror on top of the china display and refused to come down in the face of Mrs. Weasley's wrath.

Upon entering this bedlam, a certain freckle-faced and red-haired (which really isn't saying that much in the Weasley home) and gangly teenager ducked in avoidance of a makeshift javelin in the form of spoon. His companion, a brunet of annoyingly immense intellect, removed the embedded spoon from the wall and nervously placed it back into its respective drawer glancing surreptitiously at Mrs. Weasley.

"Er, Mum?" Ron queried in apprehension shifting from foot to foot as if ready to bolt at any sign of a disgruntled and/or irate glare coming his way.

Molly Weasley's head flew upward in a flurry of carroty curls and puffs of snowy white flour. Scrutinizing the two like lab specimens, she seemed to contemplate whether to beat them to a pulp or to make an exception on this proud day for her. Luckily for Ron and Hermione, she chose the latter.

"Congratulations again on getting your licenses again, dears. What is it that you want?" She asked through a strained smile that verged on becoming a grimace.

Hermione smiled uncertainly and said, "Thanks, Mrs. Weasley. Um, we were just wondering if you've seen Harry lately. I mean, he sort of just disappeared after we got back from the Ministry and-"

"Oh for heaven's sake, girl!" She interrupted impatiently. "Go look up upstairs, you ninnies! I haven't seen the dratted boy, because I have been _trying_ to make a proper dinner-"

The two fled like bats out of hell (the situations are really too similar for comfort). Climbing the steps upward into the higher reaches of the Burrow, Ron and Hermione tramped upwards and avoided eye contact in fear of uncontrollable laughter that would most likely only infuriate the orange-haired tornado even more. Upon reaching the ragged and worn door of his room/attic, Ron swept the light perspiration from his forehead and rapped against the aged oak. Lately Harry's 'moods' had become progressively frequent, and it was now common knowledge in the household to knock first or find yourself the target of a fit of pent emotions.

"Harry, mate, you in there?"

No reply. The two sent each other looks with furtive messages. Leaning closer, they strained their ears in hope of the chance of any noise. Under the clamor of the kitchen below and the rasping of their own breaths, they could make out heavy and labored gasps. Slow, painful creaks of the splintered floorboards and strange muffled murmurs seeped through the cracks in the door like acidic anguish.

"…N- no …I …won't …won't…"

Panicked, enlarged eyes flashed in fear and a mad struggle with the antique lock on the door ensued. Desperately, Hermione shoved Ron out of the way and whipped her wand while muttering an unlocking spell. The door slammed open and they burst in, frantic eyes skimming for their friend.

In a fetal position and with a tense trembling, Harry was hanging onto a bureau as if grasping the last strands of a life too feeble to raise itself from its own despair. Shuddering as if some unseen force was ferociously throttling the last strands of wind from his lungs, the boy desperately gasped out broken phrases and fierce words of pride like they were the only thing standing between him and sheer death.

"I'll nev-… never! I won't… Shuttup… shuttup… SHUT UP!"

Hermione reached out, her hand shaking uncontrollably. "H- Harry?"

He flinched violently and whirled screaming, "DON'T!"

She recoiled and stared back into his wild dilated eyes as Ron reached to grip her arm as much for his comfort as hers.

"I- I didn't mean-"

Harry's voice, cracked and strangled, rasped out as his eyes stared through his best friends like glass.

"Don't… don't touch… don't touch them!"

Suddenly, his eyes rolled back, his body constricted in a terrible, inexorable convulse. Then- he was still, kneeling on the broken, scratched floorboards. And his silence ended as suddenly as it started. A chuckle, a snicker, a giggle perverse and horrid oozed like poison from lips too thin and too crimson. Such an eerie laugh as to make the soul shudder in its own inconsolable agony.

"H- H- Harry?" Ron's voice, though whisper-quiet and wan, resounded at that moment like a gunshot. Harry's head snapped suddenly toward the boy and stared, stared with a strange, terrible hunger. It wasn't the hunger of starvation, neither that of loneliness nor greed, it was a hunger for those few passions in life where living is at its utmost and yet leaves unknown and forgotten. It is only known to dead men for whom the knowledge is but nothing a torture unspeakable.

And abruptly, with the wail of snapping boards and the thunder of the falling bureau, Harry leapt upon Ron, forcing Hermione to strike against the wall. His hands clasped upon the throat and throttled there, there where life bubbles near the surface.

Hermione shrieked and flung herself against Harry, sobbing, "STOP! STOP!"

He paid no heed to the girl and continued to strangle Ron, yelling in a voice unfamiliar all the while. "WELL, POTTER? WELL? WILL YOU GIVE UP NOW? NOW, THAT YOU SEE YOU ARE UTTERLY POWERLESS TO ME!"

Thrashing and struggling as fiercely as he could, Ron choked out garbled words and flung his fists as far and as hard as he could, but Harry seemed possessed by some godly, unnatural strength. Then, an opening! A hand had slipped!

"HARRY!"

And silence.

For a moment that seemed to last forever, and to last less than a microsecond, they were all still. Gasping breaths and fearful eyes and the dripping of bitter, salty tears against wood filled the room and overwhelmed it. Then the moment of queer tranquility was over. Ron began gasping and coughing acutely, Hermione sobbed and shuddered. Harry leapt up as if hit by lightning, a horrified expression and a faint, yet desperate, want of disbelief fleeting across his eyes.

CRACK.

He was gone.

Hermione was the first to come to. Scrambling to her feet, she rushed to Ron and propped him up.

"Ron, we have to go tell everyone, come on! Please, Ron!"

He coughed and stared at her, pale and shaking. "Why- Why- wh…"

She pulled him to his feet, and they stumbled awkwardly towards the door, the stupor of the attack still fresh on their minds.

"Oh, Ron! It's Voldemort! Voldemort! Didn't you hear him?"

The present…

Remus could say nothing. The blustering wind turned harmless breeze felt just as chilling to the marrow as it did to the ache of soul. Squelching forward again, the werewolf sat down clumsily into a swing seat beside the boy and was silent. The terrible protests of the swing's hinges started once more as Harry started up his careless and mechanical torture on the rusty iron and cracking plastic.

"Do you know what holy water is, Remus?"

Despite the tautness of the atmosphere between them, this question, so entirely irrelevant, baffled the elder man even more. And in spite of his confusion, he found himself answering as if it were completely normal and utterly appropriate.

"Isn't it something to do with a muggle religion?"

Here again was the wan smile, seeming so out of place, his eyes a diminished color like a spring with too much rain. "They say, that when God created the earth, he made the rain so that the angels and the humans would be blessed. Because of that, the rain is like a terrible burning acid to the lowly demon whom had been cast out."

Remus shifted uneasily. He glanced at Harry, wondering silently if he was simply rambling in random from delirium.

"And, as long as the rain does not hit the earth, it is pure. It is a blessing to the good and a curse to the damned. It is holy water."

The creaking of the boy's swing ceased. Slowly, he eased himself up and, trudging through the muck, he came to a halt three feet in front of Remus. And for the first time, his face was completely bare to the werewolf's scrutiny. It was ragged, tired and there were creases that had no place on a sixteen-year-old's face. He was pale and flushed in that awkward period of sniffles and hiccups that is inevitable after crying. Holding out his hands to the falling rain droplets, a bitter grimace formed and angry eyes stared upward.

"Remus… why is it, why is it that feels so… harmless?"

The distant gleam of lightening and the roll of thunder reverberated and lent strength to Remus. Arising and approaching in one swift movement, he enclosed the boy tightly into his arms. And beneath his assurance of steadfastness, Harry could do nothing but tremble, too weary to push away.

"Because there is no need for it to feel any other way."


End file.
